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Thursday, August 28, 2014

I'm No Hero... I'm a SUPERHero

I believe I mentioned last time I posted that I wasted spent most of the spring and summer walking. What I DIDN’T share with you, is that it was there I first discovered I have a gift, or, dare I say, a superpower.

Laser eyes? No. Telekinesis? No again. I can do something much more amazing. Since those are the only two powers I’m sure most people care about, I’ll stop there. Instead I’ll back up for a second and ask a question. It’s really rhetorical, but you know, answer if you want.

Anyone but me get really excited by the sound of a crunching leaf? Anyone? Not many greater joys in my life than when I step on a leaf and the sound is indistinguishable from biting into a spoonful of Cap’n Crunch cereal.

KRRRRUUUUUUNNNNNCH!

I love it. I love it so much, in fact, that walking with people is apparently no fun for them. I suppose there can be something vaguely embarrassing about going for a walk with a fortysomething year-old man and have to watch him stomp around the street like Godzilla trying to destroy Tokyo. I can’t help it, it’s my cross to bear in this world. And if you can’t accept that about me, well, then you just can’t accept me as a person. Because that’s just who I am.

At this point, I feel it’s my duty to point out that I have a similar, but unrelated, need to kick any pebble I find whilst I walk. There have been a few incidents where a pebble just happened to be placed right near a dried leaf on the street in front of me. It’s then that I learned that kicking with one foot while stomping with the other is really hard to do. I have the scrapes to prove that.

That is not, in case you’re curious, my superpower.

No, my gift, the one that has made me wonder if I should be wearing a costume to hide my true identity, is my uncanny ability to predict which foot I’ll need to use to crush said leaf without being forced to break my stride.

Please, quiet down. I can’t hear myself type over the sound of your collective sounds of awe. I’ll say that line again so you can know it’s true: I can crush a leaf, as soon as I have it marked with my mental map, by just walking over and stepping on it.

Simple things in life, isn't it?My super power is I can instantly kill any flashlight I touch. My wife won't let me near them anymore. The lights go out, she gets to the flashlight faster than the Flash. Maybe that's her superpower?

I got a shudder when I read this. Sure, you seem like a nice guy NOW, but what happens when someone interrupts one of your experiments and you lose all your hair, or... how did the Penguin become the Penguin? Whatever, the point is, we are one misstep away from Supervillian Rusty Carl using his powers to deny the rest of us the joy of crushing crunchy leaves underfoot.

And what if you develop this power? You could tell which foot is necessary to give people a bigfoot or flat tire. YOU WILL BE UNSTOPPABLE. We'll all be reduced to cowering with our backs against walls in a leafless world.

I, for one, wish to extend a hearty welcome to my future overlord. Please consider this my application for henchman, or perhaps toady?